Chapter Twelve: Mysticism and Motorbikes

A/N: Alliteration is awesome.

Can you spot all the references?

Their arrival in America was less dangerous and disconcerting than they had thought it would be. This was partially because Otogi had more than a few business contacts in the area they could ask for help finding hotel rooms, partly because Haga and Ryuuzaki had both disappeared almost immediately, and mostly because Kujaku Mai was there to meet them at the airport. Jou and Mai got back to cheerfully arguing each other to pieces while everyone struggled with the luggage and loaded it into Otogi's rental cars.

"So, how's life been since Battle City?" Mai asked curiously, one arm slung over Anzu's shoulder. "Landed any sponsorships?"

"'Sponsorship?' What for?" Yugi was too small to help lift the mammoth suitcase Anzu had brought along, so Honda and Jounouchi were busy trying to force it into the trunk. That left the smaller teenager with nothing to do for a few moments. Bakura was just standing around, confused and flailing occasionally whenever the nearest suitcase looked like it was going to explode in his face under the pressure of the car's frame.

"For dueling. When you get really famous, people will pay you for running around the globe and going to tournaments. And beating people, of course." Mai smiled and it was full of mischief. "And there's no one more famous than the King of Games."

"Oh…um, I hadn't really thought of it before." Yugi admitted. Not with the fate of the world on his shoulders every flipping week.

I'd suggest finding a place to get a massage if you were less ticklish. Yami told him silently. You really are too hard on yourself.

"You should." Mai said. "Not everyone can get into college, and if you've got what it takes to be a star, use it."

Anzu sighed. "Mai, we're just going to start third year. We still have a long time to think about that."

"Sure thing, Twinkletoes." Mai shrugged and let go of Anzu's shoulders. "Anyway, it's just a thought. So, what are you all doing in America if you're not on tour? Otogi just called and said you happened to be coming over, not why."

I think she respects magic enough that she'd believe us more than Kaiba would. Yami put in. Though that really isn't saying much…

Yugi sent a needle of impatience back at the spirit. Quiet. I still remember how you kept me up for nine hours singing "It's A Small World After All."

It wasn't the entire time—I only did it when the food cart was coming around. You said you'd be hungry.

That was about every hour, on the hour. I'm not Jounouchi!

"We're trying to stop another maniac out to rule the world." Anzu said before Yugi could sort out his thoughts and reply. "Only I guess this guy's more like Kaiba if what we heard was right."

"What, huge ego, no social skills, obviously is compensating for something and has way too much money?"

"Yep," said Yugi, trying to ignore the way Yami was laughing in the background.

"Sounds fun. Give me a call if you need any help." Mai smirked. "I'm always up for beating people up at card games."

"Thanks, Mai." Anzu said. "I think we might need it."

"Anytime." Mai said, pulling her phone out to call for a cab. "Anyway, the boys got all your stuff in the trunk, so it's about time for you to get going. See you around."

Yugi nodded. "Bye."

Just then, Yugi's phone rang. He glanced down—the caller ID said it was Setsuna. But when he answered it, the voice on the line was much older and calmer than the girl had ever been.

Akiko.

This is getting more and more interesting. Yami said, and smiled like a cat. Plans within plans, plots within plots…

Yugi groaned. And massive cell phone bills.

"I don't see what the big problem is here." Valon said impatiently. Amelda had managed to glue himself to the computer and had been there ever since he'd gotten back from Duelist Kingdom—apparently, the first duel with Kaiba had been a bust. So much for vengeance. Amelda was a moron. "All you need to do is grab him while he's not paying attention and use the Seal on him right off the bat. If he doesn't have his deck, he's dead."

"I would," Amelda snapped back, "if he was ever alone. It takes time to throw down with bodyguards and you know how long it takes for the Seal to work. I'd be dead before I ever got close."

"So what? If he's flying international, we can fake the crew and passengers and just corner him when he feels like he's safe." Valon said flippantly. "Kaiba might be one of the best Duelists in the world, but he's also a seventeen-year-old punk who's built like a goddamn scarecrow."

"And so am I." Amelda scowled. "And then there's the sycophants he's got following him around all damn day."

"What, his kid brother and a couple bodyguards?" Valon snorted. "Like that's a big deal."

"According to Doma's most recent report, he only travels with his brother, his brother's bodyguard, and her little sister." Amelda grumbled. He wanted to put a fist through the screen every time he saw Seto Kaiba's face, but that would be a waste of company resources and would probably land him in hot water with Dartz. "The kids aren't important, but her…what the hell makes Kaiba think he can run around with only one thug?"

"Who knows? Maybe the girls are trained assassins or Kaiba's got a harem." Valon said dismissively. "Either way, it makes your job easier."

Amelda frowned. "It's suspicious."

"No, it's stupid." Valon said mockingly. "Shut up and take advantage of it."

Okay. That was it.

Amelda punched Valon in the face for being a nosy asshole with too much time to talk.

He split the first two knuckles on his left hand, but he also broke Valon's nose.

So worth it.

"Dig site?" Ryuuto asked, tilting his head a little in confusion. There was, if he had to find a word for it, a caravan of rental cars heading out into the desert. He and Mana had just been waiting at a bus stop for the next shuttle out to their mother's excavation team's landing zone. Lily was a prominent archeologist/chemist/anthropologist/omni-disciplinary scientist in the area. And these people, while all as full-blooded Japanese as Ryuuto or Mana, were foreigners asking for directions. "There are about fifty of them in the next two hundred miles. Who's the head researcher?"

There was a brief argument in the car. Then the teenager with white hair stuck his head out the passenger window and said, in a British accent, "Er…Professor Hopkins?"

Mana blinked. "Who?"

"Professor Hopkins is at Site 23 with his granddaughter, Rebecca." Ryuuto said. "Do you guys have a map? I could point it out."

"What did he say?" asked the girl with brown hair and blue eyes, who sat near the back of the second car.

"Site 23," said the black-haired, green-eyed teenager who was driving. "Hey, out of you guys, who got passing grades in English?"

One hand went up besides that of the white-haired boy in front.

"Okay then. Bakura, you do the talking."

Ryuuto interrupted with, "Anyway, site 23's only about five miles up the road. The numbering scheme's off. Just make sure to turn left when you see the funny cactus."

"Funny cactus?" Bakura repeated in English, just to make sure he'd heard correctly.

"You'll know it when you see it. It's like twelve feet tall, so it's hard to miss."

"Thank you for your help."

"No problem. Just don't go breaking things on the sites or else Mom'll try to kill you with a shovel." Ryuuto said seriously. "She's the one in charge of all the sites." Well, she actually probably wouldn't, but she could get pretty mad about broken pottery and no one liked to see Lily Yamamoto in a bad mood. Most of their neighbors could testify to that.

Bakura blanched. "That's…er… Goodbye."

Was it just his imagination, or did all of the cars peel away at high speed?

"Weirdoes," said Mana, and that was the end of that.

Following what they would later dub the Funny Cactus Route (which was, indeed, funny. For a certain value thereof), they managed to find Professor Hopkins within twenty minutes. To no one's surprise, he was staying in a trailer at the dig site—which seemed to involve either ancient Native American artifacts or a really big rock like the one Ishizu had been following around; no one was really sure which it was, mostly because Bakura was also stumped.

They were surprised to find that Rebecca was also in the area, but slightly less so once she cannoned into Yugi and clamped on like a vice.

Yugi was the one who had to explain things—he was the only one familiar with the workings of the Millennium Items because of a mutually beneficial spirit-host arrangement. He was also the only one of their group (who wasn't Jounouchi) who had fought one of the biker thugs' friends and seen the power of their ritual for himself. He ended up saying a lot about how Pegasus had disappeared, that the Egyptian God cards had been stolen, and the magic that seemed to have led all of them to this point. "…and that's all we know. Also, there were a couple of kids back there who said their mother was in charge of all of the dig sites around here?"

The professor seemed to be thinking hard about all of the information, which took long enough that Yugi noticed that his arm was starting to go numb in Rebecca's grip.

"Ryuuto and Mana? Yes, they're Director Lily Yamamoto's children. They often come to the dig sites to visit their mother." Professor Hopkins shook his head. "Regarding these strange men you mentioned…did any of them, by any chance, mention the Seal of Orichalcos?"

"Yeah, they did." Yugi thought it over. "They mostly used the playing card called the Seal of Orichalcos, and the Millennium Puzzle couldn't break the spell involved when they used it. And not to mention that this Orichalcos thing seems to eat souls like a Shadow Game."

It also seems to use many of the same rules as Shadow magic, Yami put in silently. Though I've never heard of a Game being invoked by a card alone.

Professor Hopkins frowned. "I wonder, are they carrying some kind of tool that activates the ritual?"

"How about a ring?" Jounouchi suggested. At the others' confused looks, he added, "I saw the big blonde guy use a green rock on a ring to break the Seal once Valon got in over his head."

"Fascinating," said the professor. "Do you think it can be used inside the Seal if the user is losing?"

Yugi thought about the first Orichalcos-player he'd seen. "No. If it could, they'd never let their souls get taken."

The professor hemmed and hawed while Rebecca steadily increased pressure on Yugi's arm. It was really getting uncomfortable.

"Why is it always souls?" Honda wondered aloud. "First the evil Bakura—no offense—and sticking our souls in lead miniatures, then Pegasus and his 'bwa-ha-ha I have your soul in a playing card' trick, then Malik and mind control, and now a glowing circle that steals souls without actually needing a duel."

As Bakura mumbled something that sounded a bit like, "No offense taken," Otogi just shrugged and said, "Hell if I know. I just drive you guys around."

"I have to do some research on this." Professor Hopkins said finally. "Everyone should get some sleep."

The teenagers, being completely jet-lagged, decided to listen to the good professor and take up camping out in the trailer, in Otogi's rental cars, or just outside.

Akiko almost never did any actual research, since she was the type who generally trusted her employer to give her as much information as was necessary to complete the mission. When it came to the holdings of KaibaCorp, however, she quickly found that she was getting an education in business and finance whether she wanted to learn or not.

Or at the least, hearing her employers fuss with stocks for hours at a time was making it impossible to drown the numbers out.

At one point, the older Kaiba had looked at her as though it was her fault that the company was suddenly going under. In another lifetime, it might have been, but she had made her choice to stay with the Kaibas. Akiko had merely stared back, and he'd looked like he would have liked to snap at her. Then he stopped, because there was always something else about the dying company that needed managing.

She didn't blame him, but she didn't make excuses, either. Sooner or later, it would become necessary to confront the problem at its roots. They would find where Doma was getting its liquid funds. Depending on the legality of it, KaibaCorp would rip its rival apart; each and every cell pried from its twins, and set everything that remained ablaze.

Akiko could appreciate that kind of thinking. If there was a threat that declared itself such, eliminate it. Never allow it to survive and attack again.

As it was, if Mokuba was staying in Seto's office, Akiko saw no reason to act as anything other than the dutiful housekeeper. There wasn't much else she could do without being within arm's reach of that Amelda character and his friends. But once she was…

"So, that red-haired revenge-driven idiot is working for Doma." Seto mused aloud, staring out the window.

"Yes." Akiko said. She knew it because she had sent the CEO the information herself. It honestly hadn't been terribly surprising—it seemed like everything was being tied together into a neat little knot, and all they needed was a sword to cut through the center once untangling it all became too difficult.

Seto glanced at her, then went back to typing. His fingers flew across the keyboard so quickly that it all seemed to merge into one continuous tapping noise.

Akiko acknowledged the silent dismissal and left the room.

She wandered around a little, trying to figure out exactly what to do next, before giving up and heading toward her room. She was no business expert to begin with, and if a genius like Seto couldn't figure a way out of the financial bind, there was no way she could do anything. She could only punch things and, sometimes, clean the house without arousing suspicion.

She glanced out the window, to where the sky had opened up to monsters again. Honestly, she wasn't sure if normal people were really aware of the monsters appearing in public. She had heard that there was a sudden spike in the number of people being admitted to hospitals…though the reasons varied. If the monsters only came through every half hour, and in a random time and place, maybe their existence could be covered up.

Maybe.

"Sonozaki-san?" Akiko glanced back to find Mokuba looking at her curiously.

"Bocchan." Akiko murmured in acknowledgment. "Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just…" Mokuba frowned briefly, and Akiko felt a twinge of…something. She hadn't gotten emotions figured out yet. "It's getting really confusing now."

Akiko made a brief noise of agreement, though he didn't have to know why she found the entire situation confusing.

Mokuba sighed. "I'm going to bed. Good night, Sonozaki-san." He started to walk off in the vague direction of his room.

After a split second's hesitation, Akiko reached out and patted Mokuba on the head. She didn't know why he suddenly paused, turned back to give her a confused look, then ran off with a triumphant whoop, but at least he was happy.

Akiko just leaned against the wall, pondering life, the universe, and everything. Or, quite possibly, nothing. The sky looked stormy outside and she could see monsters, outlined in pinkish auras against the clouds, if she bothered to look. The lines between reality and fantasy were becoming muddled.

Later, Mokuba would brag to Setsuna about the sudden display of emotion, and Setsuna would grind her teeth in jealousy. And Akiko would remain utterly baffled.

Dartz had long since abandoned his aboveground office for the evening in favor of the Leviathan's temple. Seeing the stone dragon mouths around the central dais, each holding one of the Egyptian God cards, he couldn't help but smile. Each card had its own power—the power to break the barrier between the monsters' world and the mortal realm. They could cause immense destruction on their own…or they could be used to fuel his chosen beast's reign of terror.

Dartz smiled, feeling the constant pressure of the Leviathan's will on the back of his mind—a constant reminder of how powerful Doma was, with such a creature backing it. It was the "god" that had granted them the Orichalcos with which to do its bidding, and with it came Dartz's own mastery of magic. Aside from his ten-thousand-year lifespan, there was no greater gift.

Content, the green-haired man gazed up at the stone walls, each segment marked with a single blank panel. Some—most—had small images carved into the stone, and if one looked closely, it would become apparent that every one of those little pictograms was a person, and that every one of them was screaming.

He approached the lowest segment of the wall, putting his hand against the carved image of a man pounding on the stone as though it were just a bulletproof glass barrier, rather than a dimensional wall.

After all, every carved person was one of the Orichalcos' victims, and all of them were drifting in the Leviathan's belly as it waited for the time to be released. There wasn't enough soul-energy yet, but there would be.

"The Pharaoh has no idea what awaits him here." Dartz murmured, still smiling faintly. "It's really rather amusing how utterly blind he is." The soul-image under his fingertips seemed to wail in terror.

The Pharaoh… Dartz sneered. He'd seen the man's face before, as the battle-scarred knight Timaeus. Hermos, Jounouchi Katsuya's long-dead lookalike, and Critias, Seto Kaiba's…they had been loyal subjects until they had turned against the Leviathan and against the crown, under Dartz's own father. Striking them all down had been child's play.

Almost gently, he gave the magic of the stones a tug, and a tiny green sphere of light rolled into his hand. The image of the tormented man had vanished—his soul was momentarily free, for only as long as Dartz found it amusing to toy with it. The Leviathan wouldn't miss this one, not as weak as it was turning out to be. Its body had died years ago, so it wasn't going to be making any great escape attempts in any case.

"I wonder if you can even see what your daughter has become since you made your little gambit." Dartz remarked quietly, hearing the tiny voice scream. "Soul division was quite an interesting innovation. What a pity that it didn't work out so well for you."

He balanced the man's soul on the end of one finger. "Now that you get to see her again, I wonder how she'll react to you, Toushiro Sonozaki…?"

Click.

"Er…Dartz-sama, who are you talking to?"

Dartz snapped his fingers and Sonozaki's soul disappeared into the wall again. Then he turned and leveled a glare at Amelda, who stood at the door with a slightly disturbed look on his face.

"No one." Dartz said coolly. "Do you have Kaiba's location?"

Amelda stumbled over his words for a fraction of a second before saying, "Er, yes! He's…he's coming to San Francisco tomorrow, just like you said. On an international flight."

"Good." Dartz replied, turning to face his minion fully. "Amelda, he will have nowhere to run. This will be the final confrontation. Kill him."

A vicious smile worked its way across Amelda's face. He had been waiting for this moment for years, Dartz knew. After all, he was the one who had destroyed the young man's life with a few well-placed illusions, before they had ever met. "Of course."

"You are dismissed." With that, Dartz turned back to the wall of souls.

He thought.

He reached for his next victim.

Director Lily Yamamoto was concerned.

As project director for the entire excavation effort, she had to make sure that everything was running smoothly. She was the one who managed the monetary sponsorships in order to get the most done on the sites in a given season, and the one the site managers turned to.

She was also a mother, and when her two children had reported an entourage of teenagers pouring into Professor Hopkins' site, she bit the inside of her cheek and tried to think of what to do next.

The simplest solution would be to boot the lot of them off the premises, but she was enough of a parent to be worried about where they would go otherwise. Ryuuto and Mana didn't remember seeing any adults with them, and so far the cars hadn't left. It was possible that none of them had anywhere else to stay—other than the dedicated researchers, like Hopkins, most of the site staff didn't even want to stay so far away from the city. For her part, Lily was too busy with managing the donations and grants that kept their research afloat to stay in the managers' trailer. She usually drove back to the city in time for dinner.

"Mama, what should we do?" Mana asked, looking up at her with wide blue eyes.

If it weren't for the fact that the site was practically her second home, she'd have been a lot more worried about Mana's concern. Six-year-olds shouldn't have to worry about rowdy teenagers damaging excavating equipment.

"Did they seem like good people?" Lily asked with a glance at her son, who was looking out the window.

"They were nice enough," Ryuuto replied, "if a little weird. They'll get along great with Rebecca, though, especially that starfish-headed kid."

Starfish? Rebecca Hopkins? What?

It was a bit of an open secret that, of the children of the various researchers and workers, Ryuuto and Rebecca were not friends. They had never been openly hostile, but Ryuuto was competitive in his quiet way—once Rebecca had beaten him at Duel Monsters, he'd never forgotten. Lily sighed inwardly, hoping that her son's assessment of the group was only partly accurate. She didn't want any more trouble between the children. Not before New Years.

"Oniichan's just jealous." Mana said plainly. "They could drive, oniichan can't."

…Okay then. Mana had some strange thought processes sometimes. Ryuuto thought of cars as massive rolling boxes of death, and had sworn to never get a license. Though Mana probably didn't really know what he'd meant at the time, Lily didn't blame him. Not after what had happened to their father.

Ryuuto rolled his eyes when he though his sister wasn't looking. "Anyway, it's not so bad that we're going to need the shovel. I bet they just came to see Hopkins, whatever he's working on now."

Lily sighed. Professor Hopkins was always the strange one, going on about ancient Egypt and monsters and setting the world on fire with playing cards. She was glad that she hadn't caught that weirdness bug yet.

"That's good. I was worried I'd have to go cracking skulls again." Lily remarked, smirking a little. Her expression softened. "Anyway, you two had better get ready to go. No one wants to dig up old pots in the dark."

Ryuuto nodded, grabbing his backpack and Mana's lunchbox. Mana started picking up her crayons. Lily glanced at her laptop, long since neglected, and shut it with a shrug. She could work just as well from home—probably better, actually, since the excavation site's internet connection was slower than slow.

They all piled into the dusty old minivan just as, overhead, a faint green light arced across the sky. Ten thousand feet in the air, no one could hear a stolen soul scream.

Somewhere on the edge of seeing, there is a world where monsters roam.

Light flowed over curved white wings, outlining a massive silvery beast against the sky. In the mountains of the world beyond, the dragon gave a roar and beat its wings once, cutting its speed in half and hovering before landing. The Blue Eyes White Dragon looked up the edge of the mountain, toward the mouth of the nearby caves.

All dragons roosted here, in these mountains. Even the false ones.

Balanced slightly on its forepaws, the Blue Eyes clambered up over the stones and into the darkness. On the inside of the cave, crystals in the walls glowed brightly enough for even a warrior-type monster to find his or her way in. The white dragon's claws made harsh scrabbling noises on the stone and it had to duck its head in order to make its way into the smaller tunnels.

After a few minutes of wandering through the rocky labyrinth, the dragon emerged from the tunnel and took its first steps onto the temple grounds.

"Blue Eyes," said a voice, and the dragon looked around to see the Black Magician Girl floating nearby, looking anxious. "All three of the legendary dragons are gone."

The Blue Eyes gave a startled snort—those mounds of crystal hadn't so much as twitched in more than ten thousand years! And now they were just gone? Impossible.

The Black Magician Girl caught the dragon's disbelief and just said, "The Pharaoh called Timaeus on the night when we monsters were first allowed into the mortal world."

The Blue Eyes growled—it had never, and would never, care about any king. It just wanted to know why the crystalline dragons were all suddenly out and about. They weren't so much monsters as powerful spells at this point, having been left alone for so long that their material power was limited without some sort of partnership. The thought that they could just get up and walk away…it was still hard to believe.

"It's true," the spellcaster insisted. "Critias was called next, followed by Hermos. They have decided to fight the Leviathan again, with help."

Interesting. The great white dragon gave the spellcaster a brief nod to indicate that she should continue, preferably before it lost patience completely.

"Hermos chose to follow a young man," she said, still bobbing around in the air nervously. "When the Orichalcos targeted him, his soul called for help, and Hermos answered. But Critias…he chose your master, Blue Eyes."

The dragon blinked and sat back on its hind legs, mulling over the new information.

"I—" the Black Magician Girl began, but the dragon's tail lashed the air violently, silencing her.

Ever since the first Blue Eyes White Dragon had been born, they had always been absolutely loyal. And since that first one, their masters had been equally faithful. Now, three of them were the constant companions of their first master's reincarnation, and they had no intention of leaving. They never had.

And they never would.

The great white dragon glanced at the nervous spellcaster and gave her a dismissive snort. There were some things that only the oldest monsters would ever understand. The Black Magician, perhaps.

"You…you don't have a problem with it?" she asked, sounding surprised.

The Blue Eyes ignored her and spread its wings out wide, preparing to launch itself from the precipice of the abandoned temple. Their master would need their help soon enough. And the Blue Eyes White Dragons would be waiting patiently for the command to kill his enemies.

Just the way they always did.

The Equalizer.

The Ender of Arguments.

The Traveling Shovel of Death.

Former SCP-620.

Whether it has a mind or not, no one knows. It simply appears wherever combatants need weapons, or a hole needs digging.

At the moment, the battered old shovel was sticking upright in a pile of dirt outside the director's office.

Waiting.

A/N: This arc is getting…mood whiplash-y. Hold onto your hats.

Twinkletoes: Used as a reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I still don't really know why I had Bakura tag along. I guess I felt sorry for his lack of screentime...

The Traveling Shovel of Death: A National Novel Writing Month meme. Someone has to get killed by a shovel in every story. Or it needs to involve Mr. Ian Woon. Or a trebuchet.

In case anyone's curious, the SCP code is a reference to the SCP Foundation (.org), and at the moment SCP-620 is an unoccupied number. Usually, they try to keep track of stuff that could break people's brains, or is otherwise simply odd. For example: the rock that falls sideways (and only sideways), or a swimming pool that can teleport anyone who touches it into one of a dozen places. Five of which are in space. And that's not even counting the more dangerous SCPs... Unfortunately, the all Foundation sites, personnel, and artifacts located in the current dimension were [DATA EXPUNGED] when [EXPUNGED] [REDACTED] [CENSORED]. Suffice to say Zorc had something to do with it.

And for all their scoffing about killer playing cards, most of the characters are going to see a lot more of the monsters therein than they probably would like by the end of this.